Christoph Engel
Can We Distribute Goods Efficiently Without Property Rights?

Christoph Engel is Director of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods (Bonn, Germany) and has held teaching positions at several universities, including the position of Chair for Experimental Law and Economics at Erasmus University Law School in Rotterdam, Netherlands. He is also an Honorary Professor of the University of Osnabrück, Germany. His research focus includes Behavioral and Experimental Law and Economics.
Engel has been serving as a member of several advisory boards, including the Academic Board to the German Minister of Economics and Labor, and is a member of the Academia Europaea.

Area of Research

Behavioural Law and Economics, Economic Law, Experimental Law and Economics

"The Max Planck Society is Germany's most successful research organization. Since its establishment in 1948, no fewer than 18 Nobel laureates have emerged from the ranks of its scientists, putting it on a par with the best and most prestigious research institutions worldwide. The more than 15,000 publications each year in internationally renowned scientific journals are proof of the outstanding research work conducted at Max Planck Institutes – and many of those articles are among the most-cited publications in the relevant field." (Source)

Institute

"Many goods are not obviously best provided by unregulated markets. This does not necessarily imply that government does a better job. But research can do society a service in defining why markets have a hard time with some goods, and in comparing institutional arrangements aiming at their provision. In a precise way, the problem is defined by the concept of public goods. Capitalising on the theory of mechanism design, it can be further improved. Using experimental methods, it can be put into perspective. Yet some social dilemmas are better analysed in alternative categories. It may even be preferable to start analytically from the political decision to intervene into markets. The institute tackles these questions from the combined perspectives of economics, law and psychology. While the institute started with applications from environmental problems, current work focuses on antitrust, regulation and financial stability." (Source)

Map

Even in the absence of absolute property rights, ex-post bargaining may lead to efficient distribution of goods, CHRISTOPH ENGEL explains in this video. The findings of this research thus extend the domain of the Coase theorem. In the experiment, with a society of two individuals and a single commodity, a good ends up with the individual who values it most even if only relative property rights – i.e., rights only against other parties to a contract – are provided.

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